Tuesday, May 8. 2007

Podcast: A Look at Q1 Geospatial Earnings

We take a look at some of the latest earning reports from geospatial companies and try to tease out what's going on. Among the companies discussed: Trimble, Garmin, NAVTEQ, Pitney Bowes and Bentley, which as a private company, issued an annual report.

The podcast is 13 minutes long (5 MB) and was recorded on May 7, 2007.

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Wednesday, May 2. 2007

RFID Sensors Underground

I've noted in the past my delight with Underground Focus magazine. It covers underground locating topics and each issue has too many pictures of fires, floods and explosions typically caused by heavy equipment hitting underground pipes and wires. I got to see some of the locators up close. They are from 3M (yes, they make everything!) and is designed to work with 3Ms electronic markers. The markers are cool – one version of the markers is a 4" diameter ball inside of which is a bladder of an "anti-freeze" like substance inside of which sits basically a passive RFID chip (no internal power, so they last a long time). The ball and internal materials are biodegradeable and safe for the environment. The balls come in different colors (and use different frequencies) to mark water, sewer, comm and other underground infrastructure. Why the anti-freeze? These are going underground and you don't want them to freeze. Moreover, swimming in the liquid the chip will float horizontally, providing the best signal. Basically, the chip is "self-leveling."

Now, the markers can be "dumb" that is not contain any info (those are cheaper) but for a few dollars more you can code them (and recode them) with data of your choosing: when the pipe was laid, the contractor, etc. One clever piece of data relates to materials far below the surface. The balls work to about five feet (other markers can be found to 8 feet), but there's no reason you can't drop a ball that contains information that says that the pipe/wire/etc. is another 10 or 20 feet below it.

The end user basically plays "treasure hunt" by setting the locator for the type of target marker is of interest (water, sewer, etc.) which sets the locator to send out the right frequency for that market type. Then as you get close you see and hear you are getting close. You can even use the locator to report the distance from the tip to the marker.

How do you use these? When you dig a hole to fix or lay new infrastructure you drop markers at key points (like turns or when diameter changes, etc.) For long straight-aways you can use the cheaper "dumb" markers to save money. The rep from 3M explained that while the technology has been around a while (four states require use this exact or similar technologies) the company is still spreading the word.

Now, for the GPS part. You can hook up the locator to a GPS to capture locations to be mapped either when they are dropped or when they are later located.

[Disclosure: Bentley covered travel, hotel and food.]

BE Conference Geospatial Themes

In listening and speaking with Bentley staff and users about geospatial I teased out these themes from this year's BE Conference. While you read these recall that Bentley is about 12 years old as a company tackling GIS and other industries. (Disclosure statement: I was a member of the Bentley Geospatial team briefly in 1995.)

Engineering First, GIS as Needed
I don't think Bentley staff would say it this way, but that's my sense of how GIS is positioned. That's a big idea that helps distinguish how Bentley sees GIS in contrast to other software companies. Bentley is subtly saying, "We are an engineering software company." As a corollary, perhaps, one could say: "Engineering and GIS are not equal." No, they are not and there's no reason give them equal billing in products or marketing. I might even say "Bentley has 'gotten over' GIS."

Document/Information/Content Management is GIS
Again, don't expect to hear Bentley staffers say that, but the constant referral to ProjectWise as the center of the engineering universe reinforces it. Back years ago I used to participate (as a GIS software company staffer) in seminars touting the integration of GIS and document management; the links were weak at best. Bentley has taken the lead in stating emphatically that these solutions are part of an engineering, and thus a geospatial, solution.

Core Engineering Platforms Must be Spatially Enabled
Bentley is making a big step forward by putting what we'd call "on the fly coordinate transformation" into the core of MicroStation. (They call it geo-cooredination.) It's perhaps the strongest statement by a vendor yet that AEC, Civil Engineering, Plant and other technologies occur "in the real world" and will in time be further integrated geospatial data and analysis. It was a bit weird to have to wait for the final keynote, the "platform" keynote to see the technology to be included in the Athens (next MicroStation version) release in action. The demo from Barry Bentley worked just like I would have expected. You can attach reference files either by "plopping them down" without looking at their geographic coordinates or you can enable geo-coordination and have them be projected on the fly to match the coordinate system of the current design file. The user need know little. Barry noted that if you want you can use a linear transformation to place data, too, via something called the AEC transformation. The linear transformation, he was quick to point out is quicker than the geographic one. He showed using Google Earth placemarks to set up such a transformation and briefly demoed how core MicroStation at the Athens release directly support NMEA GPS data.

[Disclosure: Bentley covered travel, hotel and food.]

Tuesday, May 1. 2007

BE Conference Tidbits

Lots of AVIs
From the main stage to the industry sessions, I saw lots of non-live demos. Instead, I saw recorded demos. Some were so well rehearsed by the speaker, that he didn't even have to look at the movie while it was playing! While live demos are scary (and fail!) I find they more engaging. Moreover, those watching can interrupt and ask a question during the demo.

Not So Many Women
I didn't see that many sessions and all the ones I did attend (save the opening plenary) were geospatial specific. I counted just two women "on stage." One gave the electric demo and a second was a co-recipient (in Civil) of a BE Award.

Three Years of BE Awards
This was my first time attending the BE Awards Gala – a fancy and slick party (think Academy Awards) honoring some 30 winners in different categories. I support the idea of awards since they benefit both the company presenting them and the recipients. The sponsors get automatic case studies and public relations opportunities. Recipients get recognition which may translate to better salaries, promotions or just awareness back home. And, of course, we in the press are presented with instant celebrities. I can see how Bentley has the same challenge as the Academy Awards: how to keep the awards event fun, interesting and not-to-long, year after year. I understand Peter Sagal from Wait Wait Don't Tell Me was in his second year as MC. (He was terrific.)

Required: Noting How Much Time is Wasted Looking for Data/Files
I think nearly every session I attended included surveyed or anecdotal information on how much time a company lost looking for data. This is perhaps a subtle reminder that users should consider implementing ProjectWise.

Keith Sighting
I didn't see him there, but apparently Keith Bentley was sitting in the back of the Geospatial keynote.

[Disclosure: Bentley covered travel, hotel and meals.]

Bentley Geospatial "Press Conference"

It was an informal conference with all the press and a large group from the geospatial team. Here are some of the questions. Questions and answers are parphrased.

Q: Will Bentley support open source?
A: Not at this time. We think users want a company that gets paid for its products. We will support integration with open source.

Q: With geocoordination (core support for projection on the fly) will there be support for OGC Coordinate Transformation Service?
A: We are looking at it.

Q: What are geospatial 3rd party partners doing?
A: Their value add role is different; they are localizing software in the sense of making it work for local workflows/data models. They are not creating "new apps" per se.

Q: What happened to MicroStation Geographics?
A: It dates back to 1995. It was toolkit, not an end-user product and had limited possibilities for users. In 2004 we began to revampthe vision with two products – Bentley Map aimed as an end-user productivity tool and the MicroStation Geospatial Extension geared more to create a platform for customization. (These are expected later this year.)

Q: Will Bentley do more GIS analysis in its products?
A: The analysis is built into the vertical apps.

[Disclosure: Bentley covered travel, hotel and meals.]

At the Bentley Geospatial Keynote

Styli Camateros did a bit of the year in review and two points struck me. First, that Daratech identified Bentley as the number 2 geospatial company, by revenues last year. This gave me pause back then, but he said something that put it in context: "Daratech now looks at the industry more like us." Geospatial used in engineering is being measured in ways perhaps it was not in the past.

Second, Bentley is innovating not only in technology but also in licensing. Its Municipal License Subscription (MLS) includes local government packages of "all you can eat" software based on population. Some thirty-five cities are onboard with the program. I don't believe any other geospatial companies have followed suit.

Camateros offered up that infrastructure is different from other things on earth because the build and life spans are long and because the best info about them are in the original design docs. He then listed some of the requirements for "Advanced GIS for Infrastructure" which may sound familiar. Such solutions must:

1) support federated information management (that is, use content in its native form and where it "lives")
2) be able to model in real world 3D
3) support engineering users (that is, offer a single environment for their need to plan, analyze, design, manage facilities)
4) be open (he noted support for OGC standards and "de facto" standards like Oracle Spatial)
5) support multi-disciplinary projects and teams (that is, allow all team members to use the best of breed solution for their work)

Camateros next set out the product framework. I've not been intimate with the Bentley technology stack for a few years, so this was very helpful. At the bottom is the "geospatial desktop" - that's the Geospatial Extension and Bentley Map, which are to be released later this year. These products are the replacements for what was MicroStation Geographics and serve as a development platform and an end-user mapping solution, respectively. On top of that are the industry applications (for water, sewer, comms, etc.). On top of that is the Geospatial Server (ProjectWise + geosavvy including support for Oracle Spatial) which allows for geospatial document/data management. Other layers that can go "anywhere" include mobile and Web apps. There are also some advanced GIS apps, like Expert Designer for electric and other industries. And, there may be more specialized apps, as well. One thing to note – all of these layers, including the industry apps – are from Bentley. No partner apps are noted.

What followed were detailed demos of Bentley apps for electric, gas, comms, water. I want to confess something: these bored me to tears. But that's good! Why? They are for engineers, not GIS people like me! In fact, GIS is well hidden in these apps, which underscores how far Bentley as a company has come in finding where "GIS" fits in its offerings.

To wrap up, we heard about the "coming attractions." They include:

- Support for Oracle's GeoRaster in Geospatial extension – meaning users have a choice of storing images in ProjectWise or Oracle.
- Native WMS in the Athens (2008) MicroStation release
- WFS support in Geospatial Extension
- WFS/CityGML support in Bentley Map/Geospatial Extension
- Ability to "tile" large 3D projects for fast use in Google Earth

[Disclosure: Bentley covered travel, hotel and meals.]